How do you monitor startup messages in Ubuntu?

How do you monitor startup messages in Ubuntu?

I feel uncomfortable that Ubuntu just shows a logo and a progress bar.
Sometimes, after a kernel upgrade or package install, it is important
to read the startup messages to see if modules fail to load or such.
That's the only way to know, as far as I can tell, without grepping
about at random in /var/log.

Example: kernel upgrade occurs, and openafs kernel module needs to be
manually rebuilt. With the standard Ubuntu logo glowing in beautiful
orange, I have no way of knowing until the user logs in and can't
access her afs files.

Example: after the install of lm-sensors, one is supposed to manually
run the sensor detector program. The startup process tells you so,
but in Ubuntu you can't see it.

In other Linuxes I've used, there's a button or something to click on
to display the startup messages. Ubuntu got that?

It is grub, so if you've got grub pausing at boot (as I always do for at least 5 seconds), then you would be able to interact with
it and presumably customize the options being fed to the kernel. But this isn't a single keystroke, and it's not something that
you can toggle interactively later in the boot process (at least to the best of my knowledge).

That's weird. Even MS Windows has a Function key to turn
> on startup messages.

Re: How do you monitor startup messages in Ubuntu?

> On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 10:17 AM, Hex1a4 <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> Remove *silent* and *splash* from kernel options in /boot/grub/menu.lst
>>
>>
> You mean there's no way I can easily turn this on during a boot
> without first starting, logging in, and making a "permanent" change in
> menu.lst? That's weird. Even MS Windows has a Function key to turn
> on startup messages.
>

You can append them at the grub prompt. Which, I agree, is hardly more
ideal.

You mean there's no way I can easily turn this on during a boot
without first starting, logging in, and making a "permanent" change in
menu.lst? That's weird. Even MS Windows has a Function key to turn
on startup messages.
pj

I believe it was Ctrl+Alt+F1 ... i know I used it once. Though, I am
not sure if this is what you really want.

No, you can edit grub menu items at boot time. Get the boot menu on the
screen, select the entry to boot from and type 'e' (without quotes). You
will then see the lines for that entry from menu.lst. Select the kernel
line and type 'e' again and edit the line to remove silent and splash. I
can't remember what you hit to finish the edit (I think it may be CR),
but it tells you on the screen anyway.

Re: How do you monitor startup messages in Ubuntu?

> You mean there's no way I can easily turn this on during a boot
> without first starting, logging in, and making a "permanent" change in
> menu.lst? That's weird. Even MS Windows has a Function key to turn
> on startup messages.

I have "quiet splash" in my kernel options, and Ctrl-Alt-F1 works

What I feel rather frustating is that a lot of messages disappear
before you can read them, and are not logged is /var/log.
(and this is true for all Linux flavors I know)

Re: How do you monitor startup messages in Ubuntu?

Pierre Frenkiel wrote:
> I have "quiet splash" in my kernel options, and Ctrl-Alt-F1 works
>
> What I feel rather frustating is that a lot of messages disappear
> before you can read them, and are not logged is /var/log.
> (and this is true for all Linux flavors I know)
>
I really don't know which is the combination I press to stop, but it is
one of the following:

Ctrl+S / Ctrl + Q / Alt + Q / Alt + S.

I believe it is Ctrl+S though. Still, I can't restart right now to tell
you for sure since I have lots of processes going on. Sorry!

> You mean there's no way I can easily turn this on during a boot
> without first starting, logging in, and making a "permanent" change in
> menu.lst? That's weird. Even MS Windows has a Function key to turn
> on startup messages.

Why do people always say "that's stupid", when they mean "_I_ don't
understand"?

Of course Ubuntu gives you an easy way to do this - select the "recovery
mode" entry in the grub menu. When it stops booting and tells you to enter
your password or Ctrl-D, type Ctrl-D and the boot will finish.

Secondly, of course you don't have to modify menu.lst, just tab to the
correct line, type E (for edit), tab to the correct line, type E, change
the line, <enter>, type B (OK, I do this often enough that it's automatic -
so I may have got this slightly wrong, but it's simple enough).

Finally, "splash" isn't really hiding anything, it's just putting a splash
image on an unused console. The console messages are on Ctrl-Alt-F8
(iirc - again, it's automatic, I tend to just cycle through the consoles
from Ctrl-Alt-F7 onwards), so if you change menu.lst to remove the "quiet"
options, it won't appear any different when you normally boot, but you can
always use Ctrl-Alt-F8 to get to the correct console to see the messages.
--
derek

Re: How do you monitor startup messages in Ubuntu?

> Pierre Frenkiel wrote:
>> I have "quiet splash" in my kernel options, and Ctrl-Alt-F1 works
>>
>> What I feel rather frustating is that a lot of messages disappear
>> before you can read them, and are not logged is /var/log.
>> (and this is true for all Linux flavors I know)
>>
> I really don't know which is the combination I press to stop, but it is
> one of the following:
>
> Ctrl+S / Ctrl + Q / Alt + Q / Alt + S.
>
> I believe it is Ctrl+S though.

Kids these days!! Anybody who learned to compute before the CRT would know
that it's ctrl-S (XON), ctrl-Q (XOFF) :-)
--
derek

Re: How do you monitor startup messages in Ubuntu?

> I feel uncomfortable that Ubuntu just shows a logo and a progress bar.
> Sometimes, after a kernel upgrade or package install, it is important
> to read the startup messages to see if modules fail to load or such.
> That's the only way to know, as far as I can tell, without grepping
> about at random in /var/log.
>
> Example: kernel upgrade occurs, and openafs kernel module needs to be
> manually rebuilt. With the standard Ubuntu logo glowing in beautiful
> orange, I have no way of knowing until the user logs in and can't
> access her afs files.
>
> Example: after the install of lm-sensors, one is supposed to manually
> run the sensor detector program. The startup process tells you so,
> but in Ubuntu you can't see it.
>
> In other Linuxes I've used, there's a button or something to click on
> to display the startup messages. Ubuntu got that?
>
> pj
>
>

If you want every detail on bootup at the time of bootup you can get
that booting with the rescue boot in Grub just below the one your using.
Or if you can wait a minute you can read about it later in a Terminal
with $dmesg | more. This tells all.

Re: How do you monitor startup messages in Ubuntu?

On Tue, June 17, 2008 1:22 pm, Karl Larsen wrote:
> If you want every detail on bootup at the time of bootup you can get
> that booting with the rescue boot in Grub just below the one your using.
> Or if you can wait a minute you can read about it later in a Terminal
> with $dmesg | more. This tells all.

Or just take off the options from grub which supress the output and see
it as the great unix god, Grok, intended. LONG LIVE GROK!

Re: How do you monitor startup messages in Ubuntu?

Steve Lamb wrote:

> On Tue, June 17, 2008 1:22 pm, Karl Larsen wrote:
>
>> If you want every detail on bootup at the time of bootup you can get
>> that booting with the rescue boot in Grub just below the one your using.
>> Or if you can wait a minute you can read about it later in a Terminal
>> with $dmesg | more. This tells all.
>>
>
> Or just take off the options from grub which supress the output and see
> it as the great unix god, Grok, intended. LONG LIVE GROK!
>
>

To All:

I have a small problem with Gutsy when I boot up. Once bios is done the
screen goes black for a minute or so until the login screen comes up. I
have the same disk installation in an old 600M Compaq and the Ubuntu
logo and the progress bar stay on until the login screen comes up. I
know enough of command line to type it in. Is there a line command to
bring up either the progress bar or the startup messages? I do not like
the black screen.

Re: How do you monitor startup messages in Ubuntu?

Jeffrey Tooker wrote:

> I have a small problem with Gutsy when I boot up. Once bios is done the
> screen goes black for a minute or so until the login screen comes up. I
> have the same disk installation in an old 600M Compaq and the Ubuntu
> logo and the progress bar stay on until the login screen comes up. I
> know enough of command line to type it in. Is there a line command to
> bring up either the progress bar or the startup messages? I do not like
> the black screen.

I suspect you are using an invalid video mode on the console... Try
googling "linux boot video mode" because I've never had to fix this myself.
When X starts, it's resetting your video.
>
> IIRC "grok" is also a verb.

Re: How do you monitor startup messages in Ubuntu?

> Kids these days!! Anybody who learned to compute before the CRT would know
> that it's ctrl-S (XON), ctrl-Q (XOFF) :-)

I know XON/XOFF since 100 years (or may-be more), but I stupidly
thought that at boot, Ubuntu behaved like Redhat-like systems,
for which XON dowsn't work very well.
I checked that it works perfectly with Ubuntu. Thanks

Anyway, there is in Redhat like distros an interesting feature
which seems missing in Ubuntu: typing I at beginning of boot sets an
interactive mode, i.e. there is a prompt for each script in init.d,
asking wether you want to run it or not.

Re: How do you monitor startup messages in Ubuntu?

Paul Johnson wrote:
> I feel uncomfortable that Ubuntu just shows a logo and a progress bar.
> Sometimes, after a kernel upgrade or package install, it is important
> to read the startup messages to see if modules fail to load or such.
>
On most Linux distros ESC will drop out of the hidden mode and let you
see what is happening. For some reason Ubuntu has disabled this option
- perhpas they worry it will confuse new users if they accidentally hit
ESC when booting.

Re: How do you monitor startup messages in Ubuntu?

> Jeffrey Tooker wrote:
>
>
>> I have a small problem with Gutsy when I boot up. Once bios is done the
>> screen goes black for a minute or so until the login screen comes up. I
>> have the same disk installation in an old 600M Compaq and the Ubuntu
>> logo and the progress bar stay on until the login screen comes up. I
>> know enough of command line to type it in. Is there a line command to
>> bring up either the progress bar or the startup messages? I do not like
>> the black screen.
>>
>
> I suspect you are using an invalid video mode on the console... Try
> googling "linux boot video mode" because I've never had to fix this myself.
> When X starts, it's resetting your video.
>
>> IIRC "grok" is also a verb.
>>
>
> Indeed - from Heinlein.
>

Derek:

I will be away from my computer until tomorrow. Will do research as you
suggested above.

A bit of extra info which may be related to the black screen noted
above. It all seems to have to do with xorg. About 75% of the time the
system boots all the way to login screen, normal black screen ((for me)
bootup.. After login the system screen goes black and resolution changes
to 800 X 600 (my preferred resolution) and the desktop comes up. This is
my normal bootup.

From time to time (~20%) after the login screen in an normal (for me)
bootup the screen will not go black and stays at default resolution and
desktop comes up. I then go <Control><Alt><Bk Sp> the system reverts to
login screen, I log in and system comes up to desktop in 800 X 600
resolution. This is a normal (for me) bootup with one restart.

Sometimes (~25%) at bootup the system will end up in "out of range"
(monitor) and not make it to the log in screen. I then hit
<Control><Alt><Bk Sp>, get the login screen and login to an 800 X 600
desktop. Sometimes however when going <Control><Alt><Bk Sp> from the out
of range screen (~30%) the system goes to a screen saying "Greeter App
Crashing" I <Control><Alt><Bk Sp> again and the system goes to login
screen. I then login and system goes to 800 X 600 desktop. I have
learned to work my way around the problems to get to my desktop, but I
know the system is not right. Also concerning xorg, I am using i810
driver as the intel driver will not work in my system. I am running the
i845 chipset with a Dell E772C monitor.